Inside Facebook

In two separate WIPO cases that were decided on the same day, Facebook has won rights to Australian (facebook.com.au) and Irish (facebook.ie) “Facebook” domain names.

In decisions handed down yesterday, Facebook won facebook.com.au from a company called Callverse and won facebook.ie from a company called Talkbeans Media. WIPO decided that neither company had fair claim to the names. In the case of Talkbeans,

[WIPO panelist James] Bridgeman decided that Facebook is a “distinctive, coined word” and said it was more than probable that the registrant of Facebook.ie – Talkbeans Media Limited – was aware of Facebook…

As a former domain arbitrageur, it’s clear that WIPO made the right decision in both cases – neither company was even close to having a legitimate claim to use the names. As a result of WIPO’s decisions, Facebook will gain control of the domain names shortly.